Wireless communication networks are increasingly being used to provide wireless access to packet-switched networks, such as the Internet. For example, a mobile station may communicate with a base station via an air interface, and the base station may communication with the packet-switched network via a packet control function (PCF) and packet data serving node (PDSN). In this configuration, the mobile station may communicate with servers (such as Web servers, e-mail servers, media servers, gaming servers, etc.), other wireless communication devices, or other types of endpoints, via the packet-switched network.
To accommodate such packet data communications, various high data rate wireless communication protocols have been proposed. For example, several Evolution Data-Optimized (EVDO) standards within the cdma2000 family of standards have been proposed. Revision 0 of EVDO supports forward link data rates of up to about 2.46 Mbps and reverse link data rates of up to 153.6 kbps. Revision A of EVDO supports forward link data rates of up to about 3.07 Mbps and reverse link data rates of up to about 1.8 Mbps. Revision 0 is described in 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2, “cdma2000 High Rate Packet Data Air Interface,” 3GPP2 C.S0024-0, v. 4.0 (October 2002), which is incorporated herein by reference. Revision A is described in 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2, “cdma2000 High Rate Packet Data Air Interface,” 3GPP2 C.S0024-A, v. 3.0 (September 2006), which is incorporated herein by reference.
In the EVDO approach, a series of preset data rates are defined for the forward link and the reverse link. To receive data from the base station, the mobile station selects one of the preset forward link data rates (e.g., using a forward link rate selection algorithm) and requests the selected forward link data rate by transmitting a corresponding data rate control value (DRC value) in a data rate control channel (DRC channel). The base station may then transmit data to the mobile station at the requested forward link data rate. To transmit data to the base station, the mobile station selects one of the preset reverse link data rates (e.g., using a reverse link rate selection algorithm). The mobile station then transmits data to the base station at the selected reverse link data rate and also transmits an indication of the selected reverse link data rate in a return rate indication (RRI) channel.